Great Spaces: Dividend$ at Miami University

Purpose: Located in the Farmer School of Business building, Dividend$ offers students quick meal options for breakfast and lunch during the week (it is also the first dining operation to be located in an academic building on the campus). The operation was designed to give students food options they could carry away either to the building's commons area or to office lounges or other parts of the campus. The commons area has a number of study tables as well as soft furniture where students could relax and eat while studying.

Students have the choice of self- or cashier-assisted checkout at Dividend$ since every item is bar coded.

Concepts: Each of the station concepts are themed around the School of Business building. They include Traders' Greens (custom-crafted and pre-made salads including some organic salad choices), Preferred Stock (soups, quiches), Fiscal Grind (coffee and baked goods), Asian Market and Panini Portfolio.

Technology: Dividend$ is the first dining outlet at Miami to offer self scan check outs. Every item sold has a bar code that can be scanned for quick checkout at either one of the two traditional cashier stations or at two self-checkout stations. In addition, the two stations with numerous menu choices (Asian Market and Trader's Greens) have touch screens that the server uses to generate a bar code for the custom order as it is built by the customer. That allows the accumulated total of any combination of menu items to be placed on a single bar code for checkout rather than leaving the customer with a series of bar codes to scan.

Opened: Fall 2009

Foodservice Design Consultant: Cini•Little International, Inc.

Architect: Robert Stern & Moody Nolan

Great Spaces looks at new and recently renovated onsite facilities whose design demonstrates unusual flair, innovation or efficiencies. To submit a facility, contact [email protected].